Monthly Archives: June 2016

Commencement commences tonight with the kick off of my younger son’s 8th grade dance and my wonderful borrowed ‘daughter’ Alexa’s high school graduation followed by my amazing niece Gabriella’s high school graduation on Friday in New York. How the distance hurts when there are family milestones to miss. I tell my kids I will always do them a favor and live very close to them wherever they go. Yes, doesn’t sound very appealing to them right now but I have learned how important that is after having spent a lifetime away from mine.

Some memories from this week as my blog is time lapsed. At Max’s dance a young man that he has been in class with since kindergarten got up in front of the whole class at the dance and sang an amazing rendition of the old ditty Come and Get Your Love. When they were in kindergarten together Max used to come home and ask me why this boy didn’t speak or look at him or couldn’t go out on the playground and play. It was a difficult conversation to explain autism to a 5 year old. I did the best I could at the time. In second grade, the school initiated a program whereby they asked peers to spend their lunchtime a few days a week in a classroom playing board games with special needs kids who were not quite ready for the school yard experience. Max was chosen and he did it. All the A’s in grades could not make me prouder than I was of him for being chosen and more important his acceptance of it.

The night of graduation, Max decided to throw himself a little party of some 20 odd kids at the last minute. He came in to the living room and as excited as could be told me Kennedy can actually come to the party, his parents are letting him. This is the little boy who Max couldn’t understand why he couldn’t fully play with him all those years ago. This was the little boy that Max played with at lunchtime in the classroom in second grade. This was the same young man who got up and sang his heart out at the dance the night before. And this was the same young man who smiled and gave me a big hug thank you on this way out of my house the other night. I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful and great it was to see how this young man blossomed and flourished in these past 9 years. He will be going to high school with Max and there is a lot more good years to come I’m sure for him.

Another thing happened at the end of the dance as I was busy helping kids to leave with the proper parent, not that any sane adult would want to take an 8th grader home with them that they weren’t legally obligated to. Max and Onate and Josh were off to the side waiting for me and all of sudden sobbing the likes of which you usually hear at the open grave of an Italian funeral came from their direction as Principal Susie was making a futile attempt at consolation. Onate has been Max’s friend since just about kindergarten, despite my best efforts. These boys are so close and Onate is moving away after school ends and the knowledge of that overwhelmed all three of them plus two other nearby girls as common tears will do. Usually if my sons cry their eyes out it would upset me so and I would want to fix the source or eliminate it altogether. Not this time. I was proud that my son could show that much emotion and heartache over losing a friend. My kids, like me, are not the most emotionally demonstrative human beings on the planet. It showed me this week just what kind of young man I am putting out into this world. Max is the most stubborn, argumentative, my way or the high way, unparentable child I have ever seen. Well some say my mother saw one as well. But I will take that bad with the good I saw in my son’s heart this week any day.

Whether it’s a bridge to high school, college or to life, these events mark the passages of time from childhood to adult. My older one is in a gap year. It hasn’t been easy for either one of us really. If that gap turns into a chasm however we’ll need to talk. When he mentions college, well I was very excited about it a year ago but now not so much since I spent his college money on concerts and plays.

Such an emotional week it was of course as the huge gap of our lost AJ looms largest with the firsts of all the missing events throughout this year. This week especially brought tears and joy. The joy comes from discovering so much amazing music this week by Paul McCartney. What can I say, music in my life is a priority these days. I need a soundtrack just to brush my teeth. The song I chose to send Alexa this morning for her graduation as it brought tears yesterday upon first hearing it but so reminded me of the commencing kids this week is Hope for the Future. I found out later it was written by Sir Paul for the video game Destiny. It warmed my heart to be led to this song, as no one was more of gamer when young than her brother.

This week brings the near end to the fours of everything we shared with our neighbors and friends raising our four children: four Lincoln 5th grade promotion Fun Days, four Casimir 8th grade promotion dances, four 8th grade Casimir graduations, three North High graduation ceremonies and three North High grad nights. There is one North High graduation and grad night left now to complete the mandatory portion of the path to their futures.

What it holds for the remaining three past that portion remains to be seen. We can only trust that we have given the world some decent people. As a parent I don’t think I can ask for more than that. I have no aspiration for my kids to be rich or famous or infamous. I don’t strive for perfection in them either. O that ship has sailed. I want my sons discerning and honest and happy and joyful and putting some good into the world. That’s all I can hope for. Congratulations Max, Alexa and Gabriella. And Marco? Well Happy End of Gap Year, Gap.

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Which do suppose of the three CDs (Paul Simon’s Stranger to Stranger, Eric Clapton’s I Still Do or Sir Paul’s Pure McCartney) is the most likely to be shoplifted from a Target store. I found my answer today but can only wonder and worry about the person whose job it is to come up with that level of highly sought after department store protective intelligence. Are they permanently in that position and content or do they dream of moving on to perhaps a job with M5 or the CIA?

It started blandly enough as all good errands do. I wanted to buy Father’s Day gifts for the boys to give their Dad on Sunday. A recent remodel of the family room a few weeks again had me hiding his old CD/Cassette player with the hideous wires that ran across the entire wall that he used to play his music with. A recent birthday of his a few weeks ago allowed us to replace that with a more modern, sleek tiny CD player and little speakers that sound just as good. I hear you- why didn’t you just get him an IPOD or something. Sorry, but there are people on this earth who will go to their grave never having heard of an MP3. Anyway, along with this nifty new little CD player was a new Allman Brothers CD. With the bombardment this past week of really cool artists of our time putting out new CDs, Father’s Day gift ideas were a breeze. It was a bit tough having him give up the ability to play cassettes though. I reminded him that I do own a business that can transfer a cassette to CD if he likes at a family discount. Remember this is a man who has the entire Beatles album collection from the 60s on reel to reel and the TEAC to play them on. Not sure even any of the remaining Beatles can claim that.

I started at Sams with the always efficient two birds with one stone pie eyed optimism one often has on these kinds of missions. What could be easier than picking up some chicken enchiladas, toilet paper and a few CDs? I’m looking around Sams with a puzzled look on my face, which lo and behold is just the thing apparently to get someone to help you. This nice young man of 12 comes over and asks what I’m looking for. CDs I tell him. O the blank CDs are over there on aisle two. No, I would like some with actual music on them so that I don’t have to put it there myself and I will pay good money not to have to do so. We don’t carry those anymore, he says. What???? How can that be? Are you sure, I ask. Not even the good ones you don’t carry? I get clearing out the Ethel Merman Does Disco or every Lil Wayne CD you can find, but EVERYTHING??? Are you sure? Yep. Gone. All gone. Can I help you find anything? Yes, I say, my mind cause I just lost it.

Home I go with no CDs but lots of toilet paper and enchiladas. Target! That’s it. Target has to have them. Up the street, down the aisle and there they are- all three, shiny new in their CD wrappers. Two were just plainly wrapped in plastic. Hmm I thought that’s odd. Where is that crown jewel protecting plastic thingy they used to stick around them that would detonate as you go out the door if they didn’t take if off for you with a sledge hammer. O there is it on that CD. Huh?? One CD has it on still and very nice in red but not the other two? Who makes that decision and why? Who is this genius that has figured out which brand new album that no one has even heard yet is most likely to be shoplifted? That is nothing short of amazing. So I take my CDs to checkout. I ask if I can use the self check out. The ones you do yourself that were made to replace actual employees but never work until you find an actual employee to wave a magic wand across the screen. I say, there is this out the door don’t steal me protective red plastic thingy on this. If I check out here how does it come off? Take it to one of the people at the registers they say. Hmm, sort of defeats the self service checkout I just did, but I comply because I am nothing if not a rule following, don’t question authority kind of gal. I ask the first nice older lady at the register. She starts running this can opener type thing across the plastic thing but it won’t budge. She tries a pen. Nothing. Finally she says take it to that kid over there cause I don’t want to break one of my nails. No joke. So I go see the kid who now attempts taking it off with a screwdriver, a hammer, a can opener looking thing and thank God just as he was going at with the sledge hammer the red menace slipped off the CD case. The suspense is killing you isn’t it? Which CD is so amazing, so beautiful done that people with no money would rather risk jail time by stealing it from Target rather that downloading it for free from piracy sites on the internet. It’s Paul of course- Simon though not McCartney. Yes folks, Stranger to Stranger the new Paul Simon album merits the highest level of CD protection there is from Target. I can’t wait to hear it! It’s going to be great.

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It’s taken me awhile this week to process a few news events and to decide if they really merited writing about. It’s no secret to those who know me that I stopped watching all news reports several years ago. The unbalanced distorted view of our world projected by any of the news sources today is just not something I want to be exposed to any longer. Over 50 years of it is enough, thank you very much. When we focus on the one sensationalized tragic event we lose the ability over time to remember the true aberration in our society that the event is. We are no longer capable of differentiating the statistical probability of that happening to our loved ones or us. That in and of itself has prevented an entire generation or two of raising children in a manner that truly prepares them for life’s ass kicking that happens to everyone sooner or later by attempting to protect them from everything real or imagined.

Last week’s two events, the Stanford student who raped the unconscious student and the killing of 50 of kids in club by a homophobe brings a few thoughts to this newsaphobe. The Stanford student is an aberration and is not to be viewed as the norm by this generation of college students. I will posit that on any Saturday night during the school year in this country there are millions of girls on college campuses who drink and pass out at frat parties and several millions upon millions of college boys who don’t rape them. That is the statistical truth. So let’s not wring our hands over this boy’s case. Let’s get it off the front pages and forget about it. It has no bearing to reality at all. Let’s shorten that 15 minutes of fame or infamy to 15 seconds if we truly need it. The judge is another issue. This man will continue to preside over cases and that begs the question why?

I have two teenage sons and so this resonates for me on the male side of the equation. Rather than wonder about the raising of this Stanford kid, I challenge parents to instead examine your own house. And that is all we can do in light of these situations. Have the difficult conversations with your sons and daughters. Starting when they were about 14 or 15 I have had three conversations with my sons and depending on the topic, their friends as well. The first and foremost is the NO means NO from a girl. Although not exactly related to the Stanford case as that young girl didn’t even have the chance to answer NO. I suspect this abomination of a college student (and yes abomination is the word) never had the balls to ask the question or received a NO every time he did. Doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of his things, he is still an aberration and we must treat him as such.

Yes we all know the thrill of the boy-girl chase. Well as I tell my sons, it’s too damn bad. Girls with you don’t get to play hard to get. If she says no, you take it as a no-period. Second on my hit parade has been as I’m sure every parent in this country has been doing with this and a previous generation is the don’t drink and drive conversation. Lord knows no parent had that conversation with us in my day. I have always told them I don’t care where you are or whom you are with; if you as the driver or a driver you went with drinks you are NOT to drive at all. And this I said to their friends as well. I will send a cab for you. No, I am not getting out of bed to come get you. I will though get you all home no questions asked. My third conversation was one on seeing a friend passed out at a party or event on alcohol or drugs or whatever the case may be. Do not, I told them, ever leave someone in that condition. Call the paramedics, their parents or me but do not ever leave someone like that alone all night. Judging by the kids my older son took home to sleep it off every now and then, he listened well. This one is a tough one for me and it didn’t take a law to make it ok for kids to do this for me to have that conversation. I was in this position when I was about 20 years old in the home of a friend who was a drug addict at the time along with a few others. He turned blue and passed out. The friends took off in a shot. I couldn’t. I called the cops, gave them the information and left the door open for them. They saved his life. A year later the same thing happened in the schoolyard but no one bothered to call anyone and he died in that yard at 24 years old. He wasn’t a bad person, just a troubled one. My point is this; rather than focusing on the one that goes hopelessly wrong like the Stanford story, focus on making millions of these potential stories go hopefully right. That’s all we can do as parents. This generation today is not stupid or lazy. They are a bright generation that was born under some tragic circumstances with 911. I see a level of responsibility in terms of social interactions with drugs and alcohol that my generation sure didn’t have at that age. This is not a generation that has the market cornered on violence and massacres either. My generation gave you Charles Manson after all.

At a play last night (Big Sky), I loved a line from the 17 year old daughter to her mother and father. She said, you don’t get it, young is the new old. Speaks volumes. I also loved the father saying that marriage was made for when people didn’t live as long, but that’s a whole other blog. The other line that was great from this 17 year old (Yes this is the digression portion of our show for the regulars here) is when her Mom is bearing her soul about how she is being reborn by quitting her job and volunteering at the hospice instead, meeting Lazarus and having her first affair. She says Mom, you are nothing but a girl in an old woman’s body. And there you have it in a nutshell folks. The generation that brought you sex, drugs and rock and roll will not be going gently into that good night. No we’ll still go with sex, drugs and rock and roll but now it means Match or Ashley, Viagra and a thousand dollar concert in the desert this fall. Our generation will justify and rationalize our way into our sunset years. An article the other day illustrates this well. A researcher put out an article that people who talk to themselves are geniuses. Really? I will be enrolling in Harvard any day. I venture a guess that this scientist is now in his 70s and that he was also the one who wrote an article in his 20s right out of college saying that people who talk to themselves need to have a shot of electro shock therapy every now and then. Get the picture. Same as that annoying New York Times article on past Biggest Loser weight loss contestants saying that they gained back all the weight because their bodies were made to do so. Nothing in the article about the Big Macs I’m sure they shoved into their mouths at the speed of light. Ok now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

The second tragedy this week of course is the mass shooting by a pissed off homophobe who also happens to be a Muslin. Wow two for the price of one. Not really watching much on this but I’m sure it took the news like 2 seconds to shift the focus from this kid’s homophobia to making it a Muslin terrorist religious based act. Homophobia is a tough one and so are the gun laws that everyone will be shouting about in the coming days again and then nothing will get done of course. We love our guns and hate our gays. But again, this is one isolated kid. What about the millions that march in gay pride or tolerance parades or vote for marital equality laws to name just a few things.

This isn’t the days of Stonewall. This is an evolved generation in the areas of gays, lesbians, pangender, transgender and other genders I don’t even know of. This wasn’t some 60 year old homophobe ala J.Edgar that did this. This was a 29 year old. So again, while we wring our hands in horror and we should but we must remember this is not the norm. Unfortunately we must resign ourselves to the fact that certain political forces will never take the gay marriage question off the table. So be it. I am a bit ambivalent on the gay marriage issue anyway. On the one hand having been married twice, I don’t understand why they don’t get how good they have it not being allowed to get married. On the other hand, I am all for gay marriage since if I ever do get married again it will be to a gay man. All we can do, though is hope that a future generation will remove it forever from being used as a divisive tool. Interesting to see if this boy had homosexual tendencies. I posit that the most closeted and repressed homosexuals are the biggest homophobes. We had one running this country behind the scenes for years. I won’t even say his name cause he is still alive and still very powerful and scares the hell out of me. And no he didn’t have his own TV show years ago firing people.

I am proud of the tolerance in both gender and racial equality that this new generation holds. I am the most rabid of liberals and my own sons will call me a racist all the time. They have friends of varied races and colors who are always at our house. Yes lucky me. They don’t understand prejudice and for that I give not only credit to their parenting (me) but also to the great diversity of our community and the schools they have attended. The problem is now teaching them that stupid is not a protected class. I get called a racist whenever I point out something dumb one of their black friends does. I then have to remind them that I am NOT racist and that STUPID comes in all colors.

Guns are on the other side of this coin this week. I don’t know about this actually. I do agree we should get rid of all the assault weapons. I do know I do not ever want a handgun in my house for any reason. I do know that people who are severely paranoid because watching today’ss news reports have given them a bad case of the ‘it could happen to me any second” mentality in terms of all sorts of robberies, boogie men and other things like that. I do know that the vast majority of shootings occur between people who know each other in some way or by accident due to gun negligence in the home. The statistical probability of it happening from a stranger is extremely low but if you take the news as an extrapolation that every bad thing can happen to you in a second well then I certainly understand the underlying fear and the need for unnecessary protection. This is truly, I believe, where the ground zero is in getting guns under control. We constantly point to other countries and their success in this area and if we take a look we will see that their news is not the sensationalized in your brain 24/7 that ours is. I think this is a good place to start. Let’s go back to the half hour nightly news. Tell us quickly the events of the day, good and bad and then get the hell off the air. More Kardashians, less news. Begin with not making people so afraid and perhaps they will give up their need for guns. Couple that with making the obtaining of a firearm at least as difficult as getting a job in McDonalds and perhaps we have a jumping off point. This again is my very simplistic humble opinion and I sure there are those who say no, no it’s more complicated than that. Well sure maybe, but complicated so far has gotten us nowhere. Maybe we need to give simple a chance.

Have we thrown out the baby with the bath water with the results of our Democratic primaries yesterday in California and other states? Are we now clamoring so vehemently for a woman to lead us and not another white male that perhaps we have lost the opportunity to have a chance at being lead by a very different white male, one not steeped in traditional patriarchal chest thumping, testosterone brain washing , Bushesque style leadership. I voted for Bernie and changed my mind at the last minute about Hillary. Hillary has been for all intents and purposes ‘president’ before in a collaborative way. I have worked under eight presidents in my near 38 year tenure as a manager for the Federal Government so my perspective is from the ‘inside’ if you will. There is no question and the GAO statistical office will support it, that the Clinton administration did more for this country economically and socially than many will ever know and many more will never acknowledge. This was not Bill alone. This was very much a collaborative effort with his wife and his Vice President. What Al Gore alone did to revitalize and fix the federal bureaucracy was nothing short of a miracle. What Hillary did to provide benefits for mothers, children and families will never be matched.

Here’s the thing. During the financial and real estate crises of the early 2000’s, I heard only two voices of reason amongst the shrill chest beating and hand wringing of politicians and pundits who truly didn’t have a clue how we got into the mess we were in. Those two voices were Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. They understood the problems better than most and more importantly they had solutions to the problems. I imagine without doing a lot of research that will hurt my head today, the country and the politics took some of the advice and left the rest. Not sure they left the worst though. We could be quietly headed back in that direction very easily with expiring mandates in the financial and real estate sectors coming around soon, but that’s another topic for another day. Requires me to research and my head and heart hurts too much for that today.

Have we perhaps rejected the notion of another “boys will be boys” white male led presidency in favor of the matriarchal shift of power we have so wanted? Is that why perhaps we didn’t vote Bernie in, despite the fact that on the surface he provided much more of the radical changes a matriarchal starved populace desires?

Have we painted him unconsciously with the same brush as Trump, the poster child for the worst a patriarchal society has to offer simply because he is another white male? I don’t know the answer to this. I do know that I wish fervently that Hillary and Bernie would be the first to show the world that politics is NOT about egos and manufactured ideological differences and factions and that she would make him Vice President and that he would accept. Is this not truly the way to unite the party? Which by the way as far as I’m concerned the party system in electing our officials should be eliminated all together and parties should be saved for only when you are serving delicious appetizers and good alcohol. But I digress. What is the point of a divided Democratic party? How are we then any better than the Republicans and their ego fueled maniacs? It is patently absurd to me that if these two people are truly what they say they are: altruistic potential potentates who care only for the good of this country then why on earth would they not form the partnership needed to realize their goals. They are NOT far apart at all on what they want for this country and how great would it be to get that meshing of ideas. If the rabid supporters for each side would just look at their positions on the important stuff and stop acting like a bunch of jilted lovers who can’t let go of Hillary’s past they would see how great a collaboration this could be for the country. It will sadden me if she doesn’t ask Bernie to be VP because then no matter how they spin it the bottom line is it is still about egos and winning and all that good stuff we dislike about the other party and patriarchal societies in general. We won’t truly get the matriarchal change we need. That we had to even select between the two just annoyed me yesterday to no end. It was an incredible waste of our time and resources. They could have already been out there campaigning for the November election. I don’t get it. They pride themselves on being so different and yet the same ridiculous childishness of “ I have to be in charge’ and “now I won so you can’t play anymore” is just appalling to me. I am not offended by anyone reading this who will call me ‘childish and naive’ and not understanding of the “real” issues as to why they can’t become a ticket. So be it. I’d rather keep my idealistic common sense, thank you very much.

When are we truly going to get adults in charge that can put their egos aside for the good of this country? Maybe never or maybe this time they will surprise us and as we say in New York, DO THE RIGHT THING!